Judy Foster of Calgary's Parrot Resource Centre and one of her feathered friends. Polly might want a cracker, but Gloria Fantin just wants people to stop buying parrots.
It may seem like a strange place for one of North America’s leading parrot rescue centres, snowbound and distinctly un-tropical most months of the year, but Calgary is Canada’s capital for psittacines.
You can thank Fantin for that: with 15 parrots in her home and a mission to educate Canada on the realities of keeping wild birds captive, she’s the heart and mind behind the Parrot Resource Centre.
“When people call me a bird brain, I take it as a compliment,” said Fantin.
“These birds are really smart.”
She’s not kidding. Her feathered friends may not be much for hackneyed chatter about crackers, but they are clever enough to utter phrases like “Go Flames Go”.
But when she leaves, one bird will typically say “see you later, go shopping” while another greets her each a.m. with a “hello, good morning.”
When it’s too noisy, one of the birds will scold the others with a stern “shut up.”
It’s cute and novel to have pets who can talk back — and that’s one of the big problems with a bird that outclasses many a three-year-old child in the smarts department.
When it comes to pets, birds are third only to dogs and cats, and it’s hard to find a pet store where some colourful member of the parrot family isn’t for sale.
But unlike cats and dogs, parrots are a commitment for the owner’s entire life, if not longer.
“They can live 40, 50 or even 60 years,” said Fantin.
Noisy, often neurotic and in need of constant attention, parrots are hard work, and the result is a pet that gets passed around, as one owner after another gets exhausted.
“That cute little chick from the pet store will live in seven homes on average over its lifetime. Every move destroys them psychologically,” said Fantin.
“Every time they go to a new home, they have to adapt to what that home expects of them.”
Hence, her own collection of 15 birds, 13 of them being unwanted orphans, and one being a bird purchased from a pet store before she knew better.
“I was one of those people that was in a pet store and I saw a cute little baby Senegal parrot, and I thought, ‘oh wouldn’t that be great to have a cute little bird like that,’” said Fantin.
“That was the start of learning about parrots — I didn’t know anything; I didn’t know they weren’t domesticated, but wild.”
It’s a story shared by a huge number of unwitting Canadians — the Parrot Resource Centre estimates there are around six million parrots living as pets in Canada — and most owners have no clue what they’re in for.
Changing that, and ultimately the entire parrot pet trade, is the goal of the Parrot Resource Centre, which officially opened this past spring.
With Fantin as the spokeswoman and another seven parrot aficionados acting as directors, the PRC is a registered non-profit, all-volunteer organization.
Finding lasting homes for abandoned birds is a key goal of the organization, but teaching people about the tribulations of owning the exotic birds is the ultimate focus.
Fantin says anyone wanting to meet a parrot before purchasing one needs only ask for a complete feathered introduction to the species.
As well, the PRC is taking birds to schools to teach as many children as possible that parrots are amazing animals, but an intense commitment.
“Our focus is to better educate the public about what’s involved in providing proper care of parrots before they buy or bring a parrot into their home,” said Fantin.
While she personally would like to see the parrot pet trade made extinct, Fantin says making sure captive bird have the best life possible is the goal of the PRC.
“PRC is not involved in the debate over whether parrots should be kept as companion pets, but simply to say ‘here is what is involved in proper care of a parrot — you decide.’”
For more information on the Parrot Resource Centre visit their website at parrotresourcecentre.ca